"Gentlemen of the sewers, my compliments.

You'll make no short cut to 'The Twisted Arm' to-night!" Then, like something shot from a catapult, he sprang to the door, whisked through it, banged it behind him, turned the key, and went racing down the corridor like a hare.
"It must be sheer luck now!" he panted, as he reached the angle and, kicking aside the rug, pulled up the trap.

"They'll have that door down in a brace of shakes, and be after me like a pack of ravening wolves.
The race is to the swift this time, gentlemen, and you'll have to take a long way round if you mean to head me off." Then he passed down into the darkness, closed the trap-door after him, shot into its socket the bolt he had screwed there, flashed up the light of his electric torch, and, _without_ the password, turned toward the sewers, and ran, and ran, and ran!.